01
Capital Advisory
Asset-backed transactions from USD 100 million. We take the situation you cannot staff internally and run it as an organised process. Sell-side, buy-side, capital raising, and succession.
Canton of Zug, Switzerland · Since 2018
More good deals than capital?
Most of our clients arrive in exactly this position. A portfolio worth owning. A window that closes on a date somebody else set. No organised process to get from here to signed.
Sellability memo
Week 1
Structure decision
Week 2
Counterparty list
Weeks 3–4
Weekly status × 6
Weeks 5–10
Purchase agreement
Signing
Handover file
After
—
A mandate actually produces these artifacts. Timings are typical. A process built around a fixed date compresses, and we say which weeks give before we start.
The Monday Problem
Three live opportunities. Capital for one.
This is not a hypothetical. It is the week that ends with most of our first calls.
08:40
You open the pipeline. Three assets worth owning. Funding for one.
09:15
The seller's adviser wants an indication by the 30th. That is nineteen working days.
10:20
You call the bank that financed the last one. They come back after committee.
11:45
The best of the three needs a partner, not a lender. You know none well enough to call.
14:00
Back to the operating business. The pipeline sits where you left it.
17:30
Someone else signs the asset you priced in March.
Nothing went wrong today. That is the problem. Deals this size rarely die from a bad decision. They die from a process nobody had the people to run.
Three Practices, One Mandate
Capital, conviction, and capability.
Most firms sell one of the three. A real opportunity usually needs all three at once. The firm holding only one is the reason good assets sit still.
02
Special Situations
USD 5 to 25 million, arranged through institutional joint ventures and co-investment partners. We work the situations other capital declines. Complexity, time pressure, distress, and assets with no natural home.
03
AI Deployments
Enterprise AI for investment firms, built and deployed with our sister company Cognosis Citadel. You see measured results on your own documents by day eleven. Production follows in two to four weeks.
Where We Work
Real assets, and the capital structures around them.
Single assets and portfolio aggregations. If you can stand next to the value, we have most likely financed, sold, bought, or partnered on one.
Real estateInfrastructureEnergy assetsHydroelectric powerBiomassData centresWireless towersSingle assetsPortfolio aggregationInstitutional joint ventures
Let's Deal With This First
“We have been burned before. Advisers who charged a great deal and delivered nothing we could point to.”
Said, in some form, on roughly half of our first calls.
A fair thing to say. We prefer to hear it in the first ten minutes. Four answers.
Our reputation with the capital is the collateral.
We return to the same institutional partners on every mandate. A weak asset in front of them costs us the relationship that makes us useful to anybody. That constraint binds harder than any fee arrangement.
You know what we are doing every week, in writing.
A named partner. A written status. The list of counterparties actually contacted, what each one said, and what it means for price. Not a monthly call that reports good progress.
We turn down mandates we do not believe will close.
The same partners work every live mandate, so we run only a few at a time. An unfinished mandate costs us more than the fee is worth. That is why the reference calls go the way they do.
Fees are a first-call conversation, not a footer.
We publish no schedule because a USD 120 million infrastructure carve-out and a distressed USD 8 million portfolio carry different work. You hear the structure and the reasoning before you spend anything.
The Numbers We Will Stand Behind
Four figures, and where each one comes from.
0
The year we founded Dark Matter in the canton of Zug. The partners who take each mandate run it.
0m+
Typical entry point in USD for asset-backed transactions. Single assets and aggregated portfolios.
5–25m
The ticket range in USD we arrange through institutional joint ventures and co-investment partners.
<60days
Our fastest special situation, first contact to signed. Proven partners and precedented structures made the pace.
We substantiate every figure on this site in a first meeting, on named transactions, under NDA.
Before Marketing
Structure comes before marketing.
The same four hydro assets, priced two ways. Switch between them.
Asset 1
Asset 2
Asset 3
Asset 4
Buyer universe — 4
Local utilitiesRegional developersFamily officesRegional banks
Same assets. A different transaction, a different buyer universe, and routinely a different valuation. The most expensive decision in the first month.
What Actually Goes Into It
The part most advisers leave out of the pitch.
Every mandate of this kind involves this work. Most firms describe the outcome and skip the method. Here is ours, step by step. A process built around a fixed date compresses, and we say which weeks give before we start.
Week 1
We establish what is actually sellable, and what is not.
Before we accept a mandate, we work the asset the way a buyer’s investment committee will. Title and permits. Offtake and contract tenor. The holding and tax structure. The three places the numbers get challenged. A meaningful share of situations fail this week. Hear it from us in week one, not from a bidder in month five.
Week 2
Structure comes before marketing.
We decide what is for sale. The asset, the platform, the equity, or a partnership in it. The same hydro portfolio priced as four single assets and as one platform makes two different transactions, two buyer universes, and routinely two valuations. This is the most expensive decision in the first month.
Weeks 3–4
The counterparty list, written down and approved by you.
Named institutions, named people, and one line on why each wants this specific asset. You approve the list before we make a single call. Nobody hears your name in the market on a day you did not choose.
Weeks 5–10
A managed process, not a broadcast.
Materials, data room, and a controlled release sequence with deadlines that bind the other side. Every week you receive the same document. Who we contacted, who responded, what they said, and what it does to price. Unglamorous, and the entire job.
After signing
We stay past the fee event.
Conditions precedent, consents, and the handover to the next operator. A transaction finishes when the asset runs under its new owner and nobody calls you about it. Not when the fee is paid.
With Cognosis Citadel
The firms that win the next cycle will own their AI, not rent it.
Our sister company builds enterprise AI for institutional investors. The data room drops at 6.00 p.m. The draft investment committee memo is ready at 6.47, every appendix read, every figure reconciled and linked to its source page, in your template.
Eleven days from the first call, you see measured results on your own documents against metrics you set. Not a demonstration on somebody else’s files.
The After
The version of your firm this builds.
- Every opportunity in the pipeline gets a decision, not just the one you happened to fund.
- A window that closes on the 30th becomes a date you plan around.
- When an asset needs a partner instead of a lender, you know exactly who to call. We built the list together.
- Your analysts spend the morning judging the deal instead of retyping it.
Next time you open the pipeline and count more opportunities than capital, make the call.
Start with a conversation, not a mandate.
Tell us what is on the desk and what the date is. If it is ours, we say so quickly. If it is not, we usually tell you whose it is.